


Neverending Story

by laissemoidanser



Category: True Detective
Genre: Abstract, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 15:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4310718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laissemoidanser/pseuds/laissemoidanser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darkness grows inside of him as he clutches rays of light in his fists, trying to overcome the gravity law but the light slips through his fingers. He’s being pulled away from the eclipse of solar embrace.</p>
<p>  <em> “Where are you going?”</em></p>
<p>  <em>“Where you’re not.”</em></p>
<p>  <em>“Why can’t you stay?”</em></p>
<p>  <em>“Don’t you see? I die every day to let you breathe”.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Neverending Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackeyedblonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/gifts).



> For quite some time I entertained the idea of this kind of AU but it would never see the light of the day if not for the support I found in this fandom. 
> 
> This was written as a gift to dear Hannah <3

***

Darkness grows inside of him as he clutches rays of light in his fists, trying to overcome the gravity law but the light slips through his fingers. He’s being pulled away from the eclipse of solar embrace.

_“Where are you going?”_

_“Where you’re not”_

_“Why can’t you stay?”_

_“Don’t you see? I die every day to let you breathe.”_

 

_***_

It’s the oldest story and Marty doesn’t remember exactly when it began. First time he opened his eyes all the blue of the skies reflected in them clear and untouched. He rose to his feet proudly with a crown of golden light shining brightly over his head. Looked around at the plain sad sight of dead land below him, took pity on it, bent down and caressed it gently. The earth sighed then and came to life, dressing up in green to cover her nakedness, decorating her dress in flowers for him.

Ever since that day she sings songs for Marty in a tune of birds trill and soft rustle of leaves. But there’s always a hint of sadness in her voice for she pities Marty.

Day after day he watches over his world from above, constantly looking for something, before stepping down behind the horizon in the evening and sinking into the abyss. And day after day he hates to sink, he fights to stay up in the sky but loses every time, goes down bleeding, leaving nothing behind but the clouds spilling red and painting the land underneath with the color of blooming amaranth.

His battlefield stays dark but then a pale shadowy figure appears in the skies, glowing calmly in the reflection of Marty’s own light, looking thoughtfully at the land below. From his chariot of clouds he retrieves a cigarette and smokes it, balancing it gently between his long nimble fingers. When he exhales the land is at once covered in a fog and he smiles.

 “Now that is better”, he says and slides gracefully from his chariot, shining brighter now. The sky grows darker and a thousand shining stars blink bright awake all over it.

Rust is walking across the tired world, touching it lightly with the tips of his soothing fingers, inhaling deep the dry hot air and exhaling a gentle symphony of the night. He walks across the sky counting stars and writing down notes in his big ledger made of constellations and threads of ancient galaxies, admiring the world Marty created, pointing out things he wants to create himself.

As he walks a pack of wolves comes out to him from the woods, howling his triumph and his beauty, owls are hooting their greetings and fireflies are sparking at his feet trying to imitate the stars shining brightly in his eyes. He walks up to the sea and it welcomes him with soft embrace of the waves, inviting him to go to sleep and yet Rust is reluctant to go, always lingering, always eager to see the one who created it all, the one who made him shine so brightly.

Time goes by and one day Rust refuses to go down. Sea water stretches its hands towards him, but he turns his pale golden back on it and remains in the sky, waiting. He will go against the rules if he has to so he whispers ancient spells into the night, spells he learnt from the stars above and he bewitches the sea water so that it lets him linger. 

When Marty appears Rust is blinded by his light, when Marty looks at him Rust is drowned in the blue of his eyes and he’s lost all his shine. Suddenly the world is alive and every single leaving creature admires Marty, none of them paying any attention to Rust’s presence, except for Marty himself. He can’t tear his eyes off him and somewhere below the land blushes and blooms in first colors of spring.

 “Why are you so quiet and pale?”  Marty asks him.

“Don’t want them people to see me, okay?”

“Then why do you stay?”

Rust doesn’t answer. He stays with Marty for several days, tiny in his presence but Marty can see his beauty. Is hypnotized by the way darkness and light fight inside him changing his shape, by the way his own light makes him shine a little brighter, makes him smile, by the stories Rust tells him about the stars in the sky and the galaxies above, the ones Marty could never reach.

But then Rust is gone. Marty waits for him to come back until his eyes cloud and he isn’t shining anymore. He looks around and sees that he is all alone in the sky, his heart hammers in his chest echoing in thousands of thunderstorms all around the earth, crashing mountains and rising angry waves at the ocean. He travels around the world on his wings of fire never finding where to go, because anywhere he turns – there is no Rust. He only catches glimpses of him stepping slowly from the solar ocean or riding his chariot of night and he tries to reach out to him, to caress his skin with soft heave of the waves before disappearing completely but he slips away. One day he gives in, he nestles upon a cloud and goes down the horizon thinking how he will never come back up again.

Rust walks the world never smiling, carrying his darkness around with him like a cloak he never wants to shed, his spell broken. He misses Marty too but never dares to admit it, because isn’t it so wrong to want something that different? In the morning he stops on his way and rests above a meadow for a while surprised to find the grass below all shiny with the tears of morning dew. Rust looks to the east, casting pale shadows over the forest, waiting, longing. But there’s nothing there, only grey clouds. Marty never shows up that day or the day after. He rests in his bed listening to the soft whisper of the ocean and under the veil of stormy clouds he wants nothing but to rest forever.

A distant nightingale song stirs him in his sleep, calling him gently through the night until he’s awake. He sighs and turns to his side but then the skylark joins the serenade pleading for him to come back, to come back to Rust.

_“Marty! Marty! Missing you here.”_

All night long he’s calling for him painting the sky for him in beautiful colors of shining northern lights, jewels he picked himself from distant forgotten worlds, gifts of farthest and oldest of stars. When Marty comes out to the sky next morning all the forests are resting under a thick cover of fog and Rust is sitting on the edge of his chariot of clouds, smoking, smiling at him calmly, two stars shine dimly from under his long lashes.

 “You called for me?” Marty asks him walking reluctantly up from behind the line of trees in the east.

“Will you shine today?”

 “What for? Tired of shining for this whole damn world with nothing in return.”

 “Will you shine for me today?”

Marty sighs deeply in a wave of cruel cold wind that scatters all over the land and shakes the trees.

 “I would if you stayed by my side. But you gonna go now.”

Rust rises to his feet and throws away the cigarette. It falls down to earth in a quick spark of a fallen star. Somewhere in the forest a lonely soul makes a wish on it never knowing that this one will definitely come true.

 “Not today”, Rust says softly dispelling the clouds.

 “Not today?” Marty asks as he watches Rust approaching him in light steps. Close as never before. “Shine fo rme, will you?”

And with that he comes right up to Marty and embraces him, drowning in his warmth. Marty can’t believe it, he locks his arms around him and when Rust presses his lips to his own he starts shining so brightly all the shadows disappear from the face of the earth.

They sway together in a dance across the sky, their bodies fit perfectly into one other. “Look at you. Look at you in this light”, Marty tells him, moving gently with him on the very edge of a cloud.

 “I’m just a stone flying in the sky, Marty.”

 “No, you’re not. I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you life and you will shine with it too.”

He kisses him. Time doesn’t remember the last thing that felt more right than this.

And Rust is full of light again. _His_ _light_ _._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)


End file.
